Covering movies that star Dave Bautista this holiday season has been a fun little project. I had no idea that he had almost half a dozen films he was in released this year! I’ll be covering Escape Plan 2: Hades today but first a little blurb about Escape Plan which was released 5 years ago in 2013. Escape Plan is about a security specialist, Ray Breslin, who is incarcerated in prisons throughout the country to test if they are prone to escapes. Ray is played by Sylvester Stallone. He is hired to test the security of a black-site prison that governments disappear people to but things go wrong. It’s a fun movie and really well done. It also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Rottmayer, a prisoner, who helps Ray. I thought it would be odd to just cover the 2nd film without touching on the first but Escape Plan also stars Benjamin Wood as a member of Rottmayer’s gang. Benjamin wrestled in WWE’s developmental territory OVW as Outlaw Ben Woods. Escape Plan also features stunt work by professional wrestler, Luke Hawx.
Scharwzenegger foreground. Above Schwarzengger’s right shoulder, Benjamin Wood.
Escape Plan 2: Hades takes place in a technological marvel of a prison, Sylvester Stallone reprises his role as Ray Breslin, now head of his own security company. His team is incarcerated one by one in a strange and highly technological prison, called Hades, where prisoners are forced to fight one another for privileges. Dave Bautista plays a former associate of Ray’s named Trent DeRosa, who is a jack of all trades privy to connections with some seedy folks. He isn’t in the movie a lot but his character is someone I would like to see more of. This may happen in Escape Plan 3: Devil’s Station which will be released sometime next year. It seems that Escape Plan 2 wasn’t very well received but I enjoyed the heck out of it. It took the concepts from Escape Plan and turned the dial to max. It was very pleasing visually, the soundtrack was excellent, and the story decent. I don’t expect every movie to be a masterpiece but if it entertains me then it has accomplished what I want a movie to do and Escape Plan 2: Hades was highly entertaining. I recommend this films to all fans of movies set in prisons, fans of action, and fans of Stallone and Bautista. I’m actually kind of eager to see what they can do with the Escape Plan 3: Devil’s Station now. For two movies I knew very little about going into this week, I came out with a renewed interest for Stallone and Scharwzenegger. As for Bautista, I’ll continue to see everything I can with him in it as he is quickly becoming a favorite to watch.
I’d also like to plug some of my other writing endeavors as I write for the site B&S About Movies, a blog run by Pittsburgh wrestler, Shirley Doe (Sam Panico). Sam has become a great friend and I love messaging him about our newest film discoveries and our shared obsession with Italian director Lucio Fulci and Italian horror films in general. This month I have a bunch of reviews up, mostly Christmas related horror film reviews but also a review of Shadow Warriors Assault on Devil’s Island, starring Hulk Hogan for lost TV week.
Wrestling With Film 